HARTLAND PHOTO GALLERY DIRECTORY

Hartland Plastics produced
many different kinds of products throughout the years. They are
probably best known for their line of Western figures and their line of
model horses. But they also produced an extensive line of religious
figures. This page gives you a choice of galleries to explore some of
the figures Hartland produced over the years. Enjoy your visit!

The galleries are broken down into many
different categories. In some instances, there are variations of the
same figure (especially in the religious figure categories). I've first
shown a pic showing the variations, then broken the pics into
individual pics. With the religious figures, the variations usually
revolve around the type of base the figure is on or different paint
schemes on the figure itself.

There are 2 common base types used for
the religious figures. The first base type appears to be an octoganal
shape. These can be either black or brown (and I have one figure with a
white octagonal base). Black seems to be more common than the brown
ones though. The next base type that came along is what I refer to as
the "filigree" base. It was generally round with some fancy cut-outs.
The swirls were usually painted gold. The filigree base is almost
always black, but there are some white ones as well. Some figures
didn't come on any kind of base though.

Painting Techniques. The earliest
religious figures seem to be painted a bit differently than the later
figures. The early ones are usually painted with more pastel colors.
For instance, Mary's robes are a soft turquoise and Jesus and Infant of
Prague figures are usually a light salmon color. Their skin is usually
just the white unpainted plastic, and the lips are painted red. I refer
to these figures as "porcelain-look". These earliest figures are almost
always on the brown octagonal base, but sometimes have a black base.

At some point the paint used for the
figures changed to more vibrant colors. Mary usually has a deeper blue
robe on, and Jesus' robes are generally a bright red. Skin was now
painted an actually flesh-tone. These are found on the black octagonal
bases and the "filigree" bases.

Hartland used other interesting finishes
on the religious figures too. Sometimes white robes are painted with a
"pearlized" paint. Some of these figures are very striking. Hartland
did produce some of the horse models in this pearl finish as well. They
also made many of the figures in a "luminous" (glow-in-the-dark)
plastic. Too bad they never produced any horse molds in that same
plastic. :)

Example
of Pearl Finish Example of
Luminous Plastic

There are various mold markings on the
religious figures as well. The earliest mold marking seems to be the
"Diamond I" mark (a capital I inside a diamond). The next marking is
"HARTLAND MOLDED HARTLAND, WISC." Then at some point, they changed to
"HARTLAND PLASTICS, INC". These markings sometimes appear by
themselves, but they also appear in pairs during transition periods.
However, it seems you will never find all 3 on the same figure. Of
course, there are the occasional figures that have no markings at all.
:)

Another interesting fact about the
religious figures is that they served various functions. Some were just
plain religious statues, but others had a purpose. There are some
figures that were made into music boxes. Some were attached to fancy
"boxes" to store a rosary. Some of the figures are night-lights. There
always seems to be something new popping up. :)